Rock Art Style Research Articles

What defines the “Minusinsk Style” in the earliest rock art of the Minusinsk Basin, southern Siberia?

This article defines a set of features typical of a particular rock art complex in the Minusinsk Basin of south-central Siberia; the so-called “Minusinsk Style.” The combination and repetition of specific typological and technological features allow us to consider not only morphological data, but also employ an image processing strategy. Here, we analyze not only formal signs describing visual characteristics of rock art, but also ways of organizing visual space within depictions – a suite of behaviors referred to as image construction methods.We analysed classic examples of the earliest rock art imagery in the Minusinsk Basin – “Minusinsk Style” petroglyphs. Until recently, this corpus of images was defined based solely on typological characteristics of zoomorphic representations. In recent years, technological aspects of petroglyph production have been studied more broadly. Here, we identify features specific to this stylistic assemblage in the rock art of the Minusinsk Basin.Although morphological components can be relatively easily imitated, it is much more difficult to replicate image construction methods, which makes them more reliable markers for defining specific rock art styles.

AMS Radiocarbon Date for Precolumbian Caribbean Rock Art: Borbón Cave No. 1, Dominican Republic

We present an AMS radiocarbon date from a bird image in a cave on the island of Hispaniola in the northern Caribbean. Borbón Cave No. 1 contains a key rock art assemblage that likely reflects a significant part of past native Taíno societies’ symbolic thought and beliefs. The grouping has already served to define one rock art style in the Antilles: the Borbón School. Our sample yielded a date of 890 ± 30 BP (1045–1225 cal AD). This result, as well as additional published dates for the region, confirms that these images were created before European contact with the region. Further dating comparison indicates that Taíno artistic traditions persisted for some years after the arrival and settlement of Spanish colonists on the island.

Meaningful choices and relational networks: Analysing western Arnhem Land’s Painted Hand rock art style using chaîne opératoire

A core feature of rock art studies concerns the characterisation and analysis of motif styles to generate new insights into their function, meaning, and symbolism in the deep and recent past. Yet what is oftentimes overlooked is attention to the production sequence used to create motifs, and what this can reveal about the social and cultural behaviour of artists. Where it is evident that a particular group of motifs contains a wide range of individual design conventions, questions about why and how these choices were made become points of enquiry that have the potential to develop new insights into their symbolic and relational character, and cultural significance. To address this challenge, we undertook an investigation of the rare and highly distinctive Painted Hand rock art style from western Arnhem Land (Northern Territory, Australia). Using a quantitative, systematic, style-based analysis, and an ethnographic exploration of a select group of distinctive design conventions, we show how the decisions made by artists to use specific design conventions were not random but instead were deeply implicated in, and shaped by, social processes acquired through learning or enculturation.

Study of a Newly Discovered Microliths and Rock Art Site, Badedev Rakseha at Panna District of Madhya Pradesh, India

The literary data revealed that the Panna district of Madhya Pradesh has not been explored extensively in the context of prehistoric archaeology. Therefore, present study is considered, keeping in view for the same. For this purpose, a systematic exploration of Panna district was conducted during seasons 2019–20. After exploration, a rock art and microliths assemblage site, Badedev (24°45’41.80” N 80°17’2.73”E), Rakseha was discovered at Panna district by the first author and recovered around 500 Microliths assemblages and 02 rock shelters with depiction of paintings. The major type of microliths artefacts identified are; core, flake, blade, bladelets, scraper, lunate, borer, burin, points, triangle, and debris. The typo-technological and morphological analyses of assemblages revealed that various types of stone artefacts used by prehistoric group of this area were made on locally available raw material and they have a sound knowledge of durability of raw material used for tool making, as we have identified more than 36% and 30% of agate and quartz type of microliths respectively among the whole artifacts collected, as both of these are hard as well as durable type of stones. Remains of microliths assemblages and debitage stone material also certified that Badedev prehistoric site was a tool manufacturing site at this area. In rock paintings, themes are most dominantly zoomorphic figurine, human figurine, handprints, and geometric and non-geometric design. For detail study of pictographs DStretch software was utilized. On the basis of rock art style, color, composition, technique, theme, subject matter; motifs such as hunting scenes and large number of animal groups, it is assumed that this site was inhabited by hunter-gatherer group. Finally we are in position to say that the discovery of prehistoric site Badedev Rakseha enhanced our knowledge about the prehistoric culture of central Indian region.

Chariots in the Bronze Age of Central Mongolia based on the materials from the Khoid Tamir river valley

The issue of using chariots in the culture of the Bronze Age population of Central Mongolia was studied on the materials of archaeological sites from one micro-region in the Khoid Tamir river valley, drawing primarily from images on rocks and stone stelae. Systematic analysis of rock art styles and burial traditions based on radiocarbon dates of burials and ritual deposits of bone enabled us to distinguish two periods of chariots' usage here: 1)prior to ca. 1200 BCE, in the Sagsai culture; 2) after ca. 1200 BCE, with the DSK culture. The study of the chariot image, its parts, and attributes of charioteers in visual compositions allowed us to reconstruct its role in the life and beliefs of herders. On deer stones, a charioteer's attributes (belt plates with a pair of hooks) are always adjacent to individual sets of weapons, which indicates the use of chariots by warriors. At the same time, images of the chariot and chariot draught teams on rocks and stelae of both periods appear connected with burial rites and ideas about the posthumous path to the afterlife. An important role in this transition was performed by a male deer, which led the deceased and his horses to the sky. Veneration of the deer image increased significantly during the second period, which is reflected in the composition of deer stones of the Mongol-Transbaikal type.

Reconstructing rock art chronology with transfer learning: A case study from Arnhem Land, Australia

In recent years, machine learning approaches have been used to classify and extract style from media and have been used to reinforce known chronologies from classical art history. In this work we employ the first ever machine learning analysis of Australian rock art using a data efficient transfer learning approach to identify features suitable for distinguishing styles of rock art. These features are evaluated in a one-shot learning setting. Results demonstrate that known Arnhem Land Rock art styles can be resolved without knowledge of prior groupings. We then analyse the activation space of learned features and report on the relationships between styles and arrange these classes into a stylistic chronology based on distance within the activation space. By generating a stylistic chronology, it is shown that the model is sensitive to both temporal and spatial patterns in the distribution of rock art in the Arnhem Land Plateau region. More broadly, this approach is ideally suited to evaluating style within any material culture assemblage and overcomes the common constraint of small training data sets in archaeological machine learning studies.

Southern Jê engravings at Morro do Avencal: Preliminary archaeometrical analysis and interpretation of a rock shelter in Southern Brazil

This paper presents an archaeometric analysis of pigment samples collected into petroglyphs from Morro do Avencal, a rock shelter located in the highlands of southern Brazilian plateau. Raman spectroscopy and Scanning Electronic Microscope associated with elemental analysis by Energy Dispersion Spectroscopy (EDS) identified the use of charcoal and beeswax as pigments (painting) in the petroglyphs. Traces of chalk were also identified, relating to photographic enhancing used to highlight discrete engravings in former studies. Control samples have been used to distinguish the mineralogical composition of the rock support, rich in Barium and Titanium oxides, from the organic pigments on the art-making locales on the wall. This exploratory study is backed up by isotopic analysis of δ13C on radiocarbon-dated samples, reinforcing the continuous and enduring presence of Jê speaking peoples until very recent times in southern Brazilian plateau, as well as their cultural belonging as regards this peculiar rock art style.

Maliwawa figures—a previously undescribed Arnhem Land rock art style

In this paper, a previously undescribed rock art style consisting of large human figures and animals with stroke-line infill is introduced. These depictions have been named Maliwawa Figures. They are primarily found in northwest Arnhem Land and to date have been recorded at 87 sites from Awunbarna (Mount Borradaile area) to the Namunidjbuk clan state of the Wellington Range. There are solitary figures and others arranged in compositions or scenes. We describe the features of this style, its distribution, subject matter and probable age. The results of a detailed analysis of all sites are discussed and a new, refined Arnhem Land rock art chronology is presented. It is concluded that Maliwawa Figures are most likely to date between 6,000 to 9,400 years of age and to be contemporaneous with Northern Running Figures and Yam Figures found at sites to the south.

12,000-Year-old Aboriginal rock art from the Kimberley region, Western Australia.

The Kimberley region in Western Australia hosts one of the world's most substantial bodies of indigenous rock art thought to extend in a series of stylistic or iconographic phases from the present day back into the Pleistocene. As with other rock art worldwide, the older styles have proven notoriously difficult to date quantitatively, requiring new scientific approaches. Here, we present the radiocarbon ages of 24 mud wasp nests that were either over or under pigment from 21 anthropomorphic motifs of the Gwion style (previously referred to as "Bradshaws") from the middle of the relative stylistic sequence. We demonstrate that while one date suggests a minimum age of c. 17 ka for one motif, most of the dates support a hypothesis that these Gwion paintings were produced in a relatively narrow period around 12,000 years ago.

Archaeology and art in context: Excavations at the Gunu Site Complex, Northwest Kimberley, Western Australia.

The Kimberley region of Western Australia is one of the largest and most diverse rock art provenances in the world, with a complex stylistic sequence spanning at least 16 ka, culminating in the modern art-making of the Wunumbal people. The Gunu Site Complex, in the remote Mitchell River region of the northwest Kimberley, is one of many local expressions of the Kimberley rock art sequence. Here we report excavations at two sites in this complex: Gunu Rock, a sand sheet adjacent to rock art panels; and Gunu Cave, a floor deposit within an extensive rockshelter. Excavations at Gunu Rock provide evidence for two phases of occupation, the first from 7–8 to 2.7 ka, and the second from 1064 cal BP. Excavations at Gunu Rock provide evidence for occupation from the end of the second phase to the recent past. Stone for tools in the early phase were procured from a variety of sources, but quartz crystal reduction dominated the second occupation phase. Small quartz crystals were reduced by freehand percussion to provide small flake tools and blanks for manufacturing small points called nguni by the Wunambal people today. Quartz crystals were prominent in historic ritual practices associated with the Wanjina belief system. Complex methods of making bifacially-thinned and pressure flaked quartzite projectile points emerged after 2.7 ka. Ochre pigments were common in both occupation phases, but evidence for occupation contemporaneous with the putative age of the oldest rock art styles was not discovered in the excavations. Our results show that developing a complete understanding of rock art production and local occupation patterns requires paired excavations inside and outside of the rockshelters that dominate the Kimberley.

Jbel Bani Rock Art: Newly-discovered Shelters along Mountain Paths suggest a Significant Link between Central Sahara and North Africa (Zagora, Southern Morocco)

Abstract The authors, with the help of a team of researchers, have discovered twelve rock shelters with inside paintings on the southern slopes of the Jbel Bani Mountains in southern Morocco. The paintings vary in subject and time period and span multiple rock art styles. Majestic creatures that once inhabited southern Morocco are depicted next to hunters, pastoralists, and warriors. The shelters and paintings cast upon their walls illustrate a transfer of culture, beliefs, technology, and ideas between people groups of the Meridional and Central Sahara and the Jbel Bani region. These discoveries were all made along a mountain path in the Bani Mountains known as Foum Laachar and may help trace ancient human migration routes.

‘Kimberley Stout figures’: a new rock art style for Kimberley rock art, North-Western Australia

The rock art of Western Australia’s Kimberley region has been the subject of special attention by archaeologists and rock art enthusiasts since George Grey’s publication of the first illustration of it. Since then, researchers have tried to date and classify the Kimberley’s many rock art styles. To date, eight widespread and highly recognisable styles have been identified, but many motif types in a range of styles remain undescribed and lie outside the formally recognised art styles. While undertaking archaeological work at Borologa, a highly decorated rock shelter in the Balanggarra lands of the north-east Kimberley, we documented a distinctive set of anthropomorphic figures that stood out for their characteristic formal and decorative attributes. Here termed ‘Kimberley Stout figures’, we propose this as a distinct motif type undertaken in a hitherto undescribed style within the Kimberley rock art corpus, describing its attributes in depth and discussing its positioning within the Kimberley rock art sequence.

The archaeology of Maliwawa: 25,000 years of occupation in the Wellington Range, Arnhem Land

The archaeology of Bald Rock 1, Bald Rock 2 and Bald Rock 3 at the sandstone outcrop of Maliwawa has established ∼25,000 years of Indigenous occupation in the Wellington Range, northwestern Arnhem Land. Flaked stone artefacts were found from the beginning of the sequence, with ground-edge axes, pounding and grinding technology and ochre recovered from deposits dating from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the recent contact period. Maliwawa was occupied during the LGM and other major regional environmental changes arising from post-glacial sea level rise and stabilisation along with the climatic variability of the Indonesian Australian Summer Monsoon (IASM) and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), supporting models that define Arnhem Land as a refugium. Lithic assemblages are represented by a quartz and quartzite flake abundance technological strategy, with an unusual lack of stone points observed, although other typical Arnhem Land Holocene retouched lithics are present. Raw material diversity in the late Holocene, alongside a variety of emergent pan-Arnhem Land rock art styles in the Wellington Range, supports the proposition of increasing exchange between Indigenous groups. These changes in the archaeological record signal the expansion of cultural systems throughout western Arnhem Land, documented historically and archaeologically, at the time of culture contact.

نقوش صخرية في الفترة المتأخرة من العصر الحجري القديم بأسوان - جنوب مصر

A new archaeological survey in Wadi Abu Subeira and el-Aqaba el-Saghira by a team from the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities has recently identified numerous new rock art sites. So far, nine sites with Late Palaeolithic rock art have been identified in Wādi Abū Subeira and only one in Aqaba. The Late Palaeolithic rock art in both Wādi Abū Subeira and Aqaba were implemented in a naturalistic style: Franco–Cantabrian Lascaux-like style, applying both techniques of hammering and incision to create the images. This style is substantially different from the later rock art located nearby. Rock art style, patina, technique and subject matter identified the date of these rock art assemblage to Late Paleaolithic. This date is supported by recently OSL date of similar rock art assemblage located at Kurta, north of Wadi Gabeira.

Petroglyphs of Footprints in the Brazilian State of Mato Grosso do Sul Genesis and Stylistic Diffusion

The article describes the occurrence of rock carvings in the shape of footprints in rock shelters and caves in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul placing this phenomenon within the archaeological context of the Brazilian Midwestern region as well as the entire continent of South America. Based on available archaeological data the paper reflects upon the possible areas of genesis and ways of diffusion of this distinct rock art style that is seemingly the most prevalent in Brazil.

Climate, styles and archaeology: an integral approach towards an absolute chronology of the rock art in the Libyan Desert (Eastern Sahara)

Abstract

Radiocarbon age constraints for a Pleistocene–Holocene transition rock art style: The Northern Running Figures of the East Alligator River region, western Arnhem Land, Australia

In this article we present nine radiocarbon age determinations producing a minimum age and a minimum age range for a regionally distinct rock art style known as the Northern Running Figures from Red Lily Lagoon, western Arnhem Land Australia. These radiocarbon determinations provide age constraints for both Pleistocene and early Holocene rock art in western Arnhem Land. The radiocarbon age determinations are produced from extracting calcium oxalate contained within mineral crusts associated with the rock art. Significantly this study employs a novel separation technique, designed to effectively isolate the oxalate compounds from the mineral crust sample using chemical pre-treatment, and demonstrates significant time offsets between radiocarbon age determinations for the calcium oxalates and other carbon inclusions contained within mineral crusts.

Discontinuities in arid zone rock art: Graphic indicators for changing social complexity across space and through time

For several decades it been argued that episodic behavioral dynamism provides a better explanation for Australian arid zone social organization than earlier models founded on perceptions of long term, widespread cultural conservatism. This new understanding continues to develop with the consideration of rock art as a behavioral proxy. The development of a rock art style sequence in the Australian Western Desert has modelled for changing occupation indices and art production modes through time based on environmental changes and their likely effects on mobility patterns and territoriality (McDonald and Veth, 2013a). This model which sees rock art accompanying the first peopling of Australia’s deserts and stands in stark contrast to that of Smith (2013) which sees rock art as a mid-Holocene addition to the adaptive social repertoires of arid-zone peoples. We have argued that rock art provides evidence for an early mapping onto arid landscapes and that there is a long, albeit syncopated, arid zone style chronology. Early pigment rock art dates from Sulawesi (Aubert el al., 2014) support the view that symbolic behaviour was part of the social repertoire of human groups colonizing Australia and its interior. This paper tests the arid-zone style sequence by quantifying the synchronic and diachronic stylistic discontinuities observable at Kaalpi and Katjarra – two style provinces in the Australian Western Desert. While stylistic variability in the recent past demonstrates the nature of synchronic discontinuity in arid zone symbolic behaviour, punctuated changes in style graphics and changes in the way that this art has been placed through time demonstrate deep-time stylistic discontinuities, providing support for the phased art sequence and evidence for earlier configurations of arid-zone social networks.

Into the Past: A Step Towards a Robust Kimberley Rock Art Chronology

The recent establishment of a minimum age estimate of 39.9 ka for the origin of rock art in Sulawesi has challenged claims that Western Europe was the locus for the production of the world’s earliest art assemblages. Tantalising excavated evidence found across northern Australian suggests that Australia too contains a wealth of ancient art. However, the dating of rock art itself remains the greatest obstacle to be addressed if the significance of Australian assemblages are to be recognised on the world stage. A recent archaeological project in the northwest Kimberley trialled three dating techniques in order to establish chronological markers for the proposed, regional, relative stylistic sequence. Applications using optically-stimulated luminescence (OSL) provided nine minimum age estimates for fossilised mudwasp nests overlying a range of rock art styles, while Accelerator Mass Spectrometry radiocarbon (AMS 14C) results provided an additional four. Results confirm that at least one phase of the northwest Kimberley rock art assemblage is Pleistocene in origin. A complete motif located on the ceiling of a rockshelter returned a minimum age estimate of 16 ± 1 ka. Further, our results demonstrate the inherent problems in relying solely on stylistic classifications to order rock art assemblages into temporal sequences. An earlier than expected minimum age estimate for one style and a maximum age estimate for another together illustrate that the Holocene Kimberley rock art sequence is likely to be far more complex than generally accepted with different styles produced contemporaneously well into the last few millennia. It is evident that reliance on techniques that produce minimum age estimates means that many more dating programs will need to be undertaken before the stylistic sequence can be securely dated.

A Mark along the Way: Schematic Rock Art and Communication Routes

On the Iberian Peninsula, during the Neolithic age, there was a new cycle of post-Palaeolithic rock art: schematic rock art. This rock art style is said to date from the 6th millennium BCE until the end of the Bronze Age (around the transition between the 2nd and 1st millennium BCE). Schematic rock art has been interpreted from different approaches (religious, semiological, social) according to the different lines of research followed in Spain for more than 100 years. In this article, based on the studies linked to “landscape archeology”, we are proposing an interpretative approach of schematic rock art. For us, this rock art style would have a functional character, landscape marker, reflecting close connections between the places chosen as a support for schematic depictions and ones with survival resources or communication routes between territories.